1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device and a method for generating a scenario suitable for use as presentation materials, and particularly to a device and a method of generating a scenario used for presentation materials, wherein a reproduced scenario of a multimedia title, which has described layout information of respective contents and the relationship of synchronism and reproduction between the contents in multimedia contents including text data, image data, motion picture data, voice data, programs, etc., i.e., a reproduced scenario intended for a title, which is suitable for use as materials at the time that a presentation is done asynchronously and on a non-facing basis through a network, is generated.
2. Description of the Related Art
Upon a general presentation used for the descriptions or the like of the presentation of research work, and a planned proposal, the descriptions have heretofore been made based on various materials on the spot where the persons concerned have gathered in a hall room. When conferences or the like are held at a conference room in which various audio visual devices such as a plurality of OHP (Overhead Projectors), a video device, are installed, the style is general that the presentation is done by explaining materials on hand in front of participants while an explainer is displaying the materials on the screen or a video monitor through the use of these devices.
There has recently been a particular increase in example in which a presentation is done while a multimedia title generated by a multimedia authoring system using a computer connected to a projector is being reproduced by the computer.
As to the presentation executed while such a multimedia title is being reproduced by the computer, there is known xe2x80x9cMultimedia Processing Devicexe2x80x9d disclosed in Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. Hei 8-115335, for example. A command bar acts as an important role when the presentation is performed in real time. In the present example, however, information about the multimedia title is described in a work in advance to utilize a pointing device as the effective command bar upon reproduction of the multimedia title, and a display image of the pointing device is controlled synchronously with the contents of the work upon reproduction, whereby screen operations under the presentation are made more effective. Further, a progress control command such as form feed or the like is associated with voice data of an explainer and recognized and executed from the voice of the explainer, thereby making it possible to smoothly perform a screen operation of the presentation.
When such a presentation using the computer is performed, it is necessary to create the multimedia title in advance by using the multimedia authoring system. However, the creation of such a multimedia tile needs a special technique such as general highly-developed programming.
On the other hand, an attempt has been made to simplify authoring requiring an advanced speciality to some extent. As an example thereof, there is known, for example, xe2x80x9cMultimedia Presentation Edit Execution Devicexe2x80x9d described in Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. Hei 8-147264. In the present example, a multimedia title can be created without programming in accordance with a system for inputting and setting reproduce/display timings of respective multimedia contents utilizing an interface having minimized a keyboard input and a human sense of time elapse, i.e., each scene changeover operating timing actually done by a human without a special sense of authoring.
Meanwhile, in the current network community in which an Internet and an Intranet have been rapidly penetrated, work has been done in work styles different from the conventional ones. Persons to be on duty at remote sites are now at work in cooperation with one another through communications via a network in particular. It is considered that when the presentation is taken into consideration in such a work style, there is an increase in the opportunity of a presentation done asynchronously and on a non-facing basis through a network, rather than the presentation performed synchronously and on a facing basis at the conference room or the like where the persons concerned have gathered in a hall room as in the conventional example.
When the presentation using the computer is carried out, it is necessary to create the multimedia title in advance by using the multimedia authoring system as described above. Thus, the special technique such as the highly-developed programming or the like has been required for its purposes. However, when the presentation done asynchronously and on the non-facing basis is taken into consideration, the situation becomes further complex. Namely, it is necessary to contain the description conventionally done by the explainer upon the presentation in the created multimedia title for the presentation as information in advance. To this end, further complex authoring work is needed. However, when presentation materials are supposed to be created as a part of the general office work without creating commercial movies, it is desirable to use a creating method having no concept of authoring.
As to the authoring which imagines such a presentation done asynchronously and on the non-facing basis, there is known xe2x80x9cMethod for Constituting Multimedia Presentation Materials and System thereforxe2x80x9d described in Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. Hei 8-180036, for example. The present example provides an authoring system wherein presented conditions such as presented magnifications, presented time, etc. for all the presented materials used as a base are set and registered, and attached materials for processing the presented materials every present materials are next created, set and registered, and scenario files in which the contents of processing of the presented conditions and presented time are edited in time sequence every materials presented from the registered data, are then set and registered, whereby the daily-created materials can be utilized as they are and the special technique becomes unnecessary.
In Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. Hei 8-115335 referred to above, when a multimedia title is reproduced by using a computer connected to a projector and a presentation is done while its description is being performed, information is described in a work in advance so that a mouse cursor exhibits an effective function as a command bar, and a display image of the cursor is controlled upon reproduction to thereby set the presentation more effectively. The extraction of a keyword related to the operation of the computer from voice recognition of an explainer allows an improvement in screen operation during the presentation. However, this relates to the presentation done synchronously and in the facing form at a conference room or the like where the persons concerned have gathered in a hall room. This is not related to the presentation done asynchronously and on the non-facing basis through the network. It is also necessary to describe various mouse cursor control information in the multimedia title upon authoring in advance so that the mouse cursor exerts the effective function of command bar upon reproduction of the multimedia title. The authoring work difficult in addition to the general fatigue leads to further difficulties and labor.
In Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. Hei 8-147264 as well, a multimedia title can be created without viewing a cumbersome timing chart and performing programming owing to, for example, the layout of objects using a graphical user interface and the definition of their reproduction sequence, and the input and setting of the timing provided to start the reproduction of the next object while the related objects are being reproduced and confirmed. However, these are limited to an improvement in the user interface with respect to the conventional authoring system. Thus, this is essentially nothing but the conventional authoring system. When the descriptions conventionally made by the explainer upon the presentation as for the presentation done asynchronously and on the nonfacing basis are included in the multimedia title as the information in advance as described above, further complex and cumbersome authoring work is needed even if the special technique such as the programming would become unnecessary.
Further, in Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. Hei 8-180036, the descriptions made so far by the explainer upon the presentation can be created, set and registered in the form of the attached materials for processing of the presented materials. Further, the multimedia title for the presentation performed asynchronously and on the non-facing basis can be subjected to authoring without any special technique. However, the procedure of setting and registering the presented time, presented magnifications, display sequence, etc. of the presented materials every presented materials and creating and registering the attached materials every presented materials is essentially nothing but the conventional authoring working. Accordingly, the present example has a problem in that the cumbersome authoring working must be performed in which each individual parts are defined, insufficient parts are created and defined, and the defined parts are piled on each other to thereby make an overall configuration.
With the foregoing in view, it is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a device and a method for generating a scenario suitable for use as presentation materials, wherein a multimedia title for a presentation done asynchronously and on a non-facing basis over a network can be generated by a method similar to daily-executed presentation action without a sense of authoring action to the utmost.
According to one aspect of the invention, for achieving the above object, there is provided a device for generating a scenario suitable for use as presentation materials, wherein a reproduced scenario describing layout information of respective contents and a relationship of synchronism and reproduction between the contents in multimedia contents used for a presentation, comprising a contents holding part that retains therein multimedia contents including text data, image data, motion picture data, voice data and programs; a contents reproducing part that reads corresponding contents from the contents holding part, based on control operations of an explainer and reproducing and displaying the read contents; a speaker information input part that receives therein speaker information including at least voice information upon reproduction of the multimedia contents by the contents reproducing part; a speaker information holding part that retains therein the speaker information inputted from the speaker information input part; a descriptive operation input part that receives therein descriptive operations including control operations relative to the contents reproducing part and command operations relative to a specific display point of the reproduced contents displayed by the contents reproducing part; a descriptive operation history holding part that retains therein history information related to the descriptive operations inputted by the descriptive operation input part; a scenario generation processing part that determines layout information of respective contents and the relationship of synchronism and reproduction between the contents in relation to a group of the contents reproduced by the contents reproducing part in accordance with the history information, a group of descriptive operation contents for reproducing the command operations and the speaker information retained in the speaker information holding part to thereby generate a reproduced scenario having a multimedia title; a descriptive operation contents generating part that generates the descriptive operation contents of an image for reproducing command operations, based on information about the command operations in the history information; a descriptive operation contents holding part that retains therein the descriptive operation contents generated by the descriptive operation contents generating part; and a scenario information holding part that retains therein the reproduced scenario generated by the scenario generation processing part.
According to the scenario generation device referred to above, the explainer operates the contents reproducing part to selectively read the multimedia contents including the text data, image data, motion picture data, voice data and programs retained in the contents holding part and reproduce and display the selected contents. While viewing the displayed contents at this time, the descriptive operations including the control operations relative to the contents reproducing part and the command operations relative to the specific display point of the reproduced contents displayed by the contents reproducing part are inputted via the descriptive operation input part, and the speaker information related to the in-reproduction contents is inputted via the speaker information input part. Thus, the history information related to the descriptive operations inputted by the descriptive operation input part is retained in the descriptive operation history holding part, whereas the speaker information inputted by the speaker information input part is retained in the speaker information holding part. The scenario generation processing part analyzes the history information of the descriptive operations, generates a scenario having described the layout information of the respective contents and the relationship of synchronism and reproduction between the contents in a predetermined format, based on the result of analysis with respect to the group of contents reproduced by the contents reproducing part, the group of descriptive operation contents generated by the descriptive operation contents generating part, and the speaker information retained in the speaker information holding part, and retains it in the scenario information holding part. The descriptive operation contents generating part generates the descriptive operation contents of the image for reproducing the command operations, based on the information about the command operations in the history information and retains it in the descriptive operation contents holding part. Thus, the explainer performs the descriptive operations while reproducing the contents of the presentation materials by himself or herself and performs the presentation spontaneously. In other words, the descriptive operations and the speaker information are recorded without making a particular sense of authoring action, and the scenario for reproducing the multimedia title for the presentation done asynchronously and on the non-facing basis can be created from the recorded information.
According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided a method of generating a scenario suitable for use as presentation materials, wherein a reproduced scenario having described layout information of respective contents and a relationship of synchronism and reproduction between the contents in multimedia contents used for a presentation is generated, comprising the following the steps of: reproducing and displaying multimedia contents including text data, image data, motion picture data, voice data and programs, based on reproduction operations of an explainer; recording descriptive operations including control operations of the explainer and command operations relative to a specific display point of the displayed reproduced contents and recording speaker information of the explainer, including at least voice information; determining layout information of respective contents and the relationship of synchronism and reproduction between the contents in relation to a group of the reproduced contents, a group of descriptive operation contents for reproducing the command operations and the recorded speaker information of the explainer, based on the recorded control operations, thereby to generate a reproduced scenario having a multimedia title; and generating the group of descriptive operation contents, based on information about the command operations of the recorded descriptive operations.
According to the scenario generating method referred to above, while the multimedia contents including the text data, image data, motion picture data, voice data and programs are being reproduced and displayed, the descriptive operations including the control operations of the explainer and the command operations relative to the specific display point of the reproduced contents displayed, and the speaker information of the explainer are recorded. Further, the layout information of the respective contents and the relationship of synchronism and reproduction between the contents are described in a predetermined format, based on the recorded control operations in relation to the group of the reproduced contents, the group of the subsequently-generated descriptive operation contents and the recorded speaker information thereby to generate a scenario. Furthermore, the group of the descriptive operation contents is generated based on the information about the command operations in the recorded descriptive operations. Thus, the explainer performs the descriptive operations while reproducing the contents and executes the presentation spontaneously, whereby the behaviors thereof are recorded and the scenario for reproducing the multimedia title for the presentation done asynchronously and on the non-facing basis on the basis of them can be generated.
According to a further aspect of the invention, there is provided a computer-readable recording medium having recorded therein a scenario generation program for presentation materials, for generating a reproduced scenario having described layout information of respective contents and the relationship of synchronism and reproduction between the contents in multimedia contents used for a presentation, comprising: a contents reproducing part that reads and reproduces the corresponding contents from the multimedia contents including text data, image data, motion picture data, voice data and programs, based on control operations of an explainer; a speaker information recording part that receives and records therein speaker information including at least voice information upon reproduction of the multimedia contents by the contents reproducing part; a descriptive operation recording part that receives therein descriptive operations including control operations relative to the contents reproducing part and command operations relative to a specific display point of the reproduced contents displayed by the contents reproducing part and records the same therein as history information; a scenario generation processing part that determines layout information of respective contents and the relationship of synchronism and reproduction between the contents in relation to a group of the contents reproduced by the contents reproducing part in accordance with the history information, a group of descriptive operation contents for reproducing the command operations and the speaker information retained in the speaker information holding part to thereby generate a reproduced scenario having a multimedia title; and a descriptive operation contents generating part that generates the descriptive operation contents of an image for reproducing control operations, based on information about the command operations in the history information.
The scenario generation program for the presentation materials, which has been recorded in the above-described medium, is executed by the computer, whereby the respective functions of the contents reproducing part, the speaker information recording part, the descriptive operation recording part, the scenario generation processing part and the descriptive operation contents generating part can be implemented by the computer.